EDUPAGE> Edupage, February 21, 2003
- From: Gleason Sackmann <gleason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: K12Newsletters <k12newsletters@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 08:38:54 -0600
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Subject: Edupage, February 21, 2003
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TOP STORIES FOR FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2003
Powell Stymied by FCC
Critics Say Pennsylvania Web-Filtering Law Goes Too Far
Study Says Open-Source Code is Higher-Quality Code
AND
University Tests Controversial Monitoring Software
Faculty Member Proposes Ban of Certain Content at Cal Poly
Microsoft Offers Grants, Programming Tools to Universities
POWELL STYMIED BY FCC
Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC), saw his efforts to deregulate local phone companies thwarted
Thursday when the commission rejected Powell's proposal to end
requirements for phone companies to sell space on local lines at
discounted rates. Members of the FCC did vote not to require phone
companies to lease parts of their data lines to competitors at reduced
rates, but Powell had wanted to take that action a step further to
cover phone lines as well. Companies including AT&T and WorldCom will
benefit from the ruling, as they will be able to continue to expand
their share of the market in part because they are able to lease local
lines at wholesale. Powell scolded the members of the FCC for their
ruling, which he said could be struck down by the courts. The result,
he said, could be an uncertain and unstable market for high-speed
service.
Wall Street Journal, 20 February 2003 (sub. req'd)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1045758414299218383,00.html
CRITICS SAY PENNSYLVANIA WEB-FILTERING LAW GOES TOO FAR
The Center for Democracy and Technology, based in Washington, D.C., has
raised concerns over the actions of the attorney general of
Pennsylvania to limit child pornography. Operating under the terms of a
recently enacted state law, the attorney general is requiring Internet
service providers to block access to pornography sites or risk fines of
$5,000. The law is unusual because it targets servers that host
pornographic Web sites, even if non-pornographic material is also
available from that server. The result, according to the Center for
Democracy and Technology, is that the Pennsylvania restrictions will
prevent access to legitimate material. The group compared the action to
halting mail to an apartment building because one tenant is doing
something illegal with the mail. A spokesman from the Pennsylvania
attorney general's office defended the strategy, saying it "has worked
in nearly every case." WorldCom objected to the policy, arguing that it
unfairly blocked access to non-offensive material, but a judge later
ordered the company to abide by the attorney general's request.
Washington Post, 20 February 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33761-2003Feb20.html
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STUDY SAYS OPEN-SOURCE CODE IS HIGHER-QUALITY CODE
Reasoning, a consulting firm that offers software inspection services,
found fewer errors in the networking TCP/IP code in Linux than in five
other closed-source operating systems. Per 1,000 lines of code, the
Linux defect rate was 0.1, compared to between 0.6 and 0.7 for
general-purpose operating systems (two of three were UNIX versions) and
between 0.1 and 0.3 for two embedded operating systems. Reasoning
obtained access to proprietary software for the test but would not
disclose the names of the operating systems that were compared to
version 2.4.19 of the Linux kernel. Offered through Red Hat and SuSE,
Linux competes with Microsoft Windows and UNIX-based operating systems
such as Sun Microsystems' Solaris, IBM's AIX, and Hewlett-Packard's
HP-UX. The study bolsters the view that open-source software is better
than proprietary code because it allows for wider scrutiny, which
translates to quicker identification and resolution of software
problems.
CNET, 19 February 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-985221.html
AND
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UNIVERSITY TESTS CONTROVERSIAL MONITORING SOFTWARE
For several months the University of Wyoming has been testing software
from Audible Magic that allows network operators to see exactly what
files are passing through the university's routers. The software goes
beyond bandwidth-shaping applications, which allocate portions of a
network's capacity to certain types of traffic, and recreates files
that use FTP (file transfer protocol) or the Gnutella technology to
identify the content. The next step, theoretically, is to compare files
passing through the network and block transmission of any that are
copyrighted. That prospect has many up in arms about what critics call
censorship, particularly in a university setting. In a letter to
universities last fall, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said,
"Monitoring the content of communications is fundamentally incompatible
with the mission of educational institutions." Brad Thomas, a network
specialist at the University of Wyoming, noted that he doesn't want to
look at what's being sent across the network, and users don't want
their communications monitored. "But," he said, "it's getting to be
the only way to control our bandwidth."
ZDNet, 20 February 2003
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-985027.html
FACULTY MEMBER PROPOSES BAN OF CERTAIN CONTENT AT CAL POLY
Responding to what she sees as an increasingly offensive and
threatening environment on campus, Linda Vanasupa of California
Polytechnic State University has written a resolution that would ban
viewing pornography, obscenity, or hate literature on computers at the
school. Last year, the chair of Vanasupa's department was convicted of
misusing a state computer, having downloaded thousands of pornographic
images to it, and left the university in the wake of the scandal.
Vanasupa said the "lack of sensitivity around this issue" is "a form of
hostility." The resolution allows for exceptions to the policy for
faculty or students who can demonstrate an academic need to access such
materials, but Paul J. Zingg, Cal Poly's provost, said the proposal is
"fundamentally in opposition to the spirit of inquiry that is critical
to the academy." The resolution is expected to be presented to the
Academic Senate, where Vanasupa believes there to be sufficient support
for debate on the Senate floor.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 February 2003
http://chronicle.com/free/2003/02/2003022101t.htm
MICROSOFT OFFERS GRANTS, PROGRAMMING TOOLS TO UNIVERSITIES
Microsoft this week announced a series of grants to two dozen academic
research projects. The grants total $3.5 million, including one to a
professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who is studying the
uses of mobile computing devices in "nonmobile" situations, such as in
an office. The software company also announced a new, academic version
of Visual Studio.Net that individuals can purchase for $99. The
academic version of the programming tool will include Assignment
Manager, an application that helps manage workflow of student
assignments. Microsoft said it will make the source code for Assignment
Manager available to academics.
CNET, 20 February 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-985305.html
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